3 / 12 / 2004 Exploring Guangze!
At about 7:15am we walked the short distance from the hotel down to one of the many tiny shops in town for noodle soup for breakfast. It was looking as if this would become a cold, and perhaps wet, day so the warm noodles in broth and some dumpling soup was helpful. It’s now clear that in Guangze we would create a big stir wherever we go. A couple of times during the day we would gain an entourage of up to a couple dozen children who would follow us down the street. They enjoyed saying “hello” and “goodbye”. One older boy knew many other English words and phrases.
The Director met us on the street after we finished eating. It’s so frustrating to us that we cannot communicate with Director Zheng directly. Our guide, Schell does a good job translating but it’s hard to adequately express your emotions through another person. Director Zheng, however, seems to be ok with the arrangement. We certainly hadn’t realized that he we would spend so much time with us. He seems to feel responsible to ensure that we are taken care of during our visit. We really appreciate his hospitality!
The four of us walked back to the hotel to check out. One of the three very kind women at the desk asked, via Schell, if we would adopt her. She is at least in her mid- to late-twenties. We joked that if she wrapped herself up and was left at the orphanage perhaps that would work. We hired a driver from 8:30am – 6:00pm to take us to the orphanage as well as to the abandonment sites of Ruby Jia Le, Leah Jia Huan (Wendy’s daughter) who currently resides with Ruby, Joella who lives in Finland, and Camille who lives in Quebec, Canada. What a day! We were successful in finding every location we hoped to find.
The first destination was the 3rd Middle School of Guangze County. This might be a good time to mention that the population of the county is about 150,000. Relative to Chinese city populations, this is very small. Some of our destinations were in villages neighboring the main town area. We easily located Leah Jia Huan’s finding place at the gate of the 3rd middle school. We took lots of photos and video.
The second stop was the Guangze Welfare Institute. We were both in shock and unable to stay as clear-minded as we had hoped. We took some pictures of the gate. This is where Camille was found. She was adopted in July of 2003. We realized that they had brought down Jia Le into the yard area. I (Julie) had caught a glimpse of her on the second level of the building, in the arms of her nanny when we first got out of the car, but I was too scared to even inquire if that was her at that moment. I expect to always remember that first glimpse, even though I couldn’t be sure that it was her from such a distance. After the gate photos, we walked over to meet our Ruby! It was all a little surreal, so hard to believe we were actually there and seeing her for the first time. After about 8 minutes of tears, staring at her, and trying to get a grip I (Julie) seemed to get a cue from her nanny that it was ok to hold her. I didn’t hold her for more than 5 minutes total during the visit, but I did get a brief smile. She didn’t seem too distressed by my holding her. She was bundled up in many layers and didn’t feel very heavy. At first she looked quite different from the photos we have that are now about 7 months old. We quickly began to recognize her. We had learned just that morning – and had it confirmed by her nanny – that her nickname is Le Le. The “Le” in her nickname is pronounced different from how the pronounce it in the context of her full name, Guo Jia Le. “Le Le” is pronounced like “Low-Low”. She responds to her name. Dan was busy taking photos and video. What an experience!! Ruby is a cutie! She seems to have a cold and her face is very chaffed looking. As there is no heat in the building, it makes sense. The bundling is certainly necessary. My fingers were completely numb as I was freezing but easily ignoring it. Le Le might also have an eye infection, although it wasn’t pink looking. It might just be goopy due to her cold. I can’t wait to start treating her skin. Her hair looks and feels as if it’s probably not been washed for a long time. With no heat it’s highly unlikely that she has been fully bathed this winter.
They quickly brought out Guo Jia Huan, the beautiful girl Wendy is adopting. She and Le Le appear to be about the same size. We believe that they call her Huan Huan and we think we know which woman is her primary nanny. Huan Huan also has rashy looking checks but less so than Le Le. The characters Huan and Le mean happiness. The individual characters in each of the girls’ names retained the same meaning, happiness. Both girls can walk with some assistance. Within the week, we’ll unlikely be able to keep up with either of them. There was also a little boy who we think it about 18 months old. He has a malformed hand that looks like a stump with tiny digits. He was an adorable, curious little tyke. Schell encouraged Director Zheng to register him as a waiting child. Schell felt he would easily be adopted. We took photos and video of him.
Next, they took us up to the second level to see the room that Le Le shares with her aunty. In the small room is a crib, a bed, two plastic green children’s chairs, a plastic green “potty”, and a table with hot water holding bottles and what looks like a rice cooker or other kind of cooker. We moved back down to the first floor to see Huan Huan’s room. She shares her room with her nanny and another much younger baby who will eventually be adopted internationally. This baby girl was asleep in her crib. We also met a girl who we think is about 6-8 years old. She has an enlarged head, neurological disorder of some kind (we think), and fused fingers. The only other child we encounter was a boy around 12-13 and he had malformed legs that impacted his mobility. We understand there to be only a couple of other children. We know that there are only two children who they expect will be adopted by parents from another country.
Le Le’s nanny, Li Shu Ming, unwrapped what smelled like a banana flavored soft cookie and handed it to her. She liked it. She even handed it toward another of the women as if to offer her a bite and did the same to me. When I actually was going to take a real bite, Le Le shook her head “no”. She did this a couple of times. It was darned cute! Her nanny laughed as she told Schell that Le Le will eat anything. We weren’t yet able to find out what other things she eats, however, we assume formula and gruel are her staple foods.
There are several old men who live there as well. We think they are army veterans. When Dan tried to look at Le Le’s fingers – a bit of a challenge give her puffy layered clothing – Dan thought the man was scolding him. I thought he was trying to show us that she has an extra digit. We learned that he was just trying to tell us that she has beautiful fingers! It’s so frustrating that we can only communicate about 2 words or phrases with these people.
There is a saw mill behind the orphanage. We think this is highly appropriate as Dan’s shop is in our basement. Maybe the sounds of Dan working (and the occasional vibration of the house) will be soothing or at least familiar to her.
The visit lasted no more than 30- 40 minutes. It was truly a surreal experience. Although it was difficult that we couldn’t take her with us, we know that meeting us once before she becomes our daughter is probably going to be helpful to her. We took several group photos with all of the staff before we headed out to locate Le Le’s finding spot. Dan’s words after we climbed back into the car were, “she’s beautiful”. That moment for some reason is also fixed in my mind. He is absolutely right. It’s more than just a physical beauty.
She was left on the porch of a duplex home about 10-15 minutes out of town. Most likely she was born one or two villages away from this spot. It was a large house, one of the nicer houses in the area. Our guide, Schell, believes that Le Le’s birth mother probably left her at a wealthier household in hopes that they might be able to keep her. The setting is a poor, rural farming area. As we were standing there a women ran down the dirt road to catch her cow and a calf; they were making a run for it. It began to rain while we were there. I had already been shivering for about an hour. This woman and two others had been helpful to our driver and Director Zheng as they attempted to figure out exactly where she was found. We took pictures and video of the house and surrounding area. One of the mountains nearby was referred to as Monkey mountain. Unfortunately the weather was socked in and we couldn’t get a good picture of it. After we left Guangze one of the things we regretted was not going back out to Ruby’s finding spot in the afternoon. We would have liked to met the people who lived in the house. Hopefully one day we will be able to return.
After this we headed out to find Dahe Village, where Joella Dahlstrom was found. Joella was adopted in July of 2002. She now lives in Finland. Her mother, Auli contacted us after we posted our referral from Guangze. They will soon be getting their referral for their second daughter form China!
Dahe Village was about a 20 minute ride out of Guangze. The main road is in very good shape so it wasn’t a problem. We stopped several times to ask directions from the locals. There is a road into the Village but we must have overshot it. We ended up taking a trail that you access off the railroad tracks down into the village. All day people must be wondering what in the world are these foreigners doing poking around the town and villages taking pictures and video. It must have been a bit surreal for them also!
After we got down into the village via a long, steep staircase, Schell and Director Zheng talked with the locals there to determine exactly where Joella had been found. We learned that she was found at the gates of a forestry institute. The forestry institute was one of the first buildings we came to in the village. We walked down the road a bit to an elementary school where the kids were having lunch. They were delightful children and were so eager to say “hello” and “goodbye” in English. It was a poor, rural setting but it seemed to be filled with lots of happy children. The school was probably for children in that village as well as for children from further down the road. We wish that Joella and her family could have been there to experience it first-hand.
From here we went to the police station that would have received the report the Joella had been found. We went back to town and had lunch with our driver. Director Zheng left us at this point. He was going to lunch at a friend’s restaurant. Schell told us that he had explained to the Director and driver that we would be using serving spoons at our meal. Schell said this was uncomfortable for them as they were accustomed to using chopsticks to eat out of the same common serving dishes. In any case, he had plans to go elsewhere. We were appreciative of all the time he had already spent with us. Lunch was great. The fourth dish was a giant, spicy schechuan -style fish stew that was pretty tasty.
After lunch we went to the police station where Ruby’s finding was reported. There was a church immediately next door to it. We then went to a Buddhist temple and a Taoist temple. We shared tea with a couple of elderly woman and a Buddhist monk and made a brief attempt at using the calligraphy brush. We moved on to get to a higher vantage point of the town. We started up a path to a TV transmission tower. It was paved with stone steps. We passed a number of people who were out for exercise. Unfortunately the weather was socked in so the view wasn’t very good. The terrain in this area reminded us of Anderson, SC. Lot’s of pine trees and red clay soil.
From here we wandered back into town a ways and met up with our driver. We wondered what the locals must of thought when they saw a couple of foreigners go strolling down an alley by their house. We sure wish we could have spoken directly with them. Our driver took us back into the central part of town. We met up again with Director Zheng and went to a grocery store and Schell picked out a bunch of treats for us to get for the kids at the orphanage. We then just walked around town window shopping for an hour or so. Julie picked up a cute little padded outfit for Ruby. She wishes she had bought a few more outfits for her in Guangze. Not that she can’t get them in other places but she would have liked to have bought more in her home town.
Unfortunately our train back to Fuzhou didn’t leave until 11:00pm. We had about 5 hours to kill. We went to the train station and Schell searched for the best place to eat. He is very concerned about picking clean places. We sat down at a noodle shop and he went to work sterilizing our bowls ,spoons and chopsticks in boiling water. He then ordered up noodles, soup and dumplings. It was excellent and the hot broth really warmed us up as it was getting cold out. After dinner Schell wanted to find a place where we could hang out for a few hours. We went and had foot massages and he bargained for us being able to hang out there until 10:30pm. It was a pretty bizarre scene. I’m sure my big size 13s where the biggest feet they had ever seen. They didn’t cut mine or Schell’s toenails but they did Julies and they cut one too short and it’s been hurting her. After the foot massages Julie and Schell opted for the full body massage. Neither one thought it was very good. Julie described it as more beating than massaging. The building wasn’t heated and we started to get pretty cold. We were very glad when it was time to head to the station and board the train. Once again Director Zheng insisted on coming out to see us off. We really appreciated his hospitality. It was so nice to get into our soft sleeper compartment, lock the door and stretch out and sleep! It was nice and warm also! We had quite a day in Guangze but were looking forward to getting back to Fuzhou and settling into the hotel for a week. Only 1 1/2 days till Ruby is with us forever!
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Here is Julie and Jia Le meeting
for the first time! We learned that Ruby is nick-named Le Le. The pronounce
it like Low Low.
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| This woman is Ruby's Aunty, Li Shu Ming. It was
obvious she cared quite a bit for Ruby and vice versa.
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The first meeting was pretty emotional. The whole visit was a little surreal. We couldn't quite believe we were there. |
| Ruby and Jia Huan (to be Leah). Leah is about 2
months older than Ruby but size wise they seem similar.
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Julie enjoying holding her girl! |
| Ruby can walk if someone helps her. It won't take long for her to walk on her own. |  |
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Ruby and another cute little boy. His right hand was misformed. Our guide, Schell strongly encouraged the director to have him listed on the waiting child list. He thought he would easily be adopted. |
| An overview shot of the Guangze SWI
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Dan, Schell and staff at the orphanage
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| Ruby's crib. Her nanny lived in this room with her. There is no heat in the orphanage so they keep them well bundled up. |  |
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This house is where Ruby was abandoned. It was bigger and nicer than surrounding houses and that's probably why it was picked. |
| We went into a computer shop in Guangze and
these women wanted to be in the picture.
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Julie with the kids who were following us around
Guangze.
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